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Sunday, May 22, 2016

175 civic wards to get new boundaries

Municipal elections scheduled for April are expected to have about 175 of the 272 wards with totally new geographical boundaries in the national capital. The State Election Commission, entrusted with the job of the delimitation exercise, is working on a formula of carving out new wards — with each having a population of about 60,000 as per the 2011 Census.

The commission is carrying out the exercise on the directions of lieutenant-governor Najeeb Jung, who has been entrusted by the Centre to demarcate new wards as per the provisions of Sections 3 and 5 of the Delhi Municipal Corporation Act, 1957. The last delimitation of MCD wards carried out in 2007 and was based on the 2001 Census. Later, 136 wards were increased to 272 after the trifurcation of the municipal corporation in 2012. In the last delimitation exercise, the population size of each ward was about 40,000 and the State Election Commission had created four wards in each of the 70 Assembly seats of Delhi.

However, the new delimitation exercise, being carried out by the commission, indicates that the number of wards in each of the Assembly segments is bound to vary from two to seven in the national capital.

For instance, Matiala Assembly seat that has a population of 4,26,760 can now boast of having a maximum of seven municipal wards and Jangpura constituency having a population of 1,50,049 can just end up having two or three wards.

There are about two dozen Assembly segments which will end up having four municipal wards in their jurisdiction. Four Assembly constituencies are likely to have six wards, but 25 others will end up having just three wards under their jurisdiction. At present, the State Election Commission has started seeking public objections on the proposed demarcation of new municipal wards. The commission will receive objections till June 15. The objections will reportedly be processed by July 15 before the State Election Commission gives the list of new demarcated wards to the government for final approval on July 31.

A highly-placed source said that the State Election Commission has so far received about 80 objections. Some people had objected that their respective wards should not be named after any caste. For instance, there are wards like Shahpur Jat and Nangloi Jat in Delhi.

Some people had objected that their wards should not be signified by the names of villages like Matiala, Kakrola, Rangpura and Nangli Sahrawati.

There were also objections suggesting that Rajasthan Colony should not be split into different wards. Others had suggested that their A, B, C, D, E and F blocks should be clu-bbed together in one ward.

The boundaries of the municipal wards are demarcated in accordance with railway lines, Delhi Metro network, roads, rivers and major drains. But this time the commission would ensure that the villages falling under lal dora are not demarcated as per small roads which divide them.

Once the new wards are fully demarcated, it is going to be a testing time for all political outfits as they will have to devise new strategies to contest in each ward in the April 2017 municipal elections. “Since the nomenclature of a large number of wards is bound to change, we will have to chose candidates according to new caste and religious formations in each ward,” a local politician told this newspaper.

“It will be a daunting task for all the political parties to study new caste and colour combinations in each of the 272 new wards.”